


Exposition, Development, Recapitulation

by theradiointukyshead



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-07
Updated: 2015-02-07
Packaged: 2018-03-10 23:11:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3306860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theradiointukyshead/pseuds/theradiointukyshead
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When two spies of different agencies meet at a masquerade ball, expect things to get a little out of hand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Exposition, Development, Recapitulation

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written for an anon on tumblr with the prompt, "I noticed you like to make Jemma Simmons like Ed Sheeran in some of your pieces, and I gotta say, I love that head canon. Do you think you could write a fic based off of Everything Has Changed (well, that one has TSwift in it, too, but I bet Jemma likes her sometimes, too) or Tenerife Sea? Anyway, I love your writings and I love Ed Sheeran so I thought I'd ask :)"

_“For the last time, Simmons, stop fidgeting with your earpiece!”_ Skye’s aggravated voice tore through the coms device, and a startled Simmons almost dumped an entire Boulevardier down the front of her dress.

“I do not!” She snapped back, defensive.

“ _Please, we can see you_ ,” Skye grumbled. “ _And stop talking to us! Remember: draw no attention, waste no time, and –_ ”

“– leave no one alive. Got it.”

She did a 360. Daniel Whitehall’s masquerade was a scene plucked straight out of her childhood’s fairy tales, with ornate light fixtures running on walls that stretched from one sculpted pillar to the next, casting a golden hue on the ballroom. Decked in tailored suits and gowns, the guests fluttered about in their endless social chitchat, so elegant that not even a feather on their masks could be moved out of place.

These were high-level enemies of the World Security Council. And she was there to poison them all.

She grabbed another drink and downed her fear in one gulp.

—————————————————-

Leo Fitz had made it known that between a party and Netflix, he would always pick the one that required the least amount of dressing up. Unfortunately, as the only agent with adequate technical knowledge, he had no choice but to accept this undercover mission.

His finger tugged at the starched collar of his dress shirt as he munched on some Swiss chocolate truffle, but no amount of fancy food could make this evening any less dreadful; there was no saving grace for putting on a tux and socializing. 

“ _Whitehall should be there in half an hour_ ,” Coulson informed him on coms. “ _In the meantime, isolate any suspicious targets and eliminate them if necessary_.”

“Copy that, sir,” he replied.

Out of the corner of his eyes, he noticed a woman who kept touching her ear and talking to herself. He was no special ops agent, but he knew a thing or two about undercover work. And when Coulson said to isolate suspicious targets, who was Fitz to disagree?

————————————————

Simmons was halfway through her third cocktail when slender fingers curled around her elbow and spun her around. A man in a 3-piece tuxedo was standing in front of her, a Phantom of the Opera’s mask covering half of his face. The other half was adorned with an easy grin that didn’t quite touch his eyes. A muscle twitched along his soft and smooth jaws as her gaze met his.

She cursed silently. The only thing she needed right now was to be tangled up with some rich boy-man’s evening affairs, so she managed a courteous smile, “I’m sorry, perhaps I’m not the Christine you’re looking for.”

“Oh I know,” he said. “But don’t you think the Phantom deserves his own twisted happy ending? Can’t keep clinging on to someone he can never have.”

There was something incredibly odd about him that she couldn’t really put her finger on, like he was just as out of place as she was, and that was never a good thing, but as the security guards positioned around the room started to move from their posts, she realized that this Phantom was the least of her concern. She needed a cover-up and she needed it fast. Grabbing him by the lapels suddenly, she crooned, “allow me a dance?”

He gulped at her proximity, stammering out a weak “yes” in response.

The chamber orchestra struck up a concerto in major mode just as she led him to the dance floor. One hand settling on the small of her back, he pulled her close. The warm light dimmed a little, and she found herself staring at chestnut hair flecked with dark gold, at midday blue eyes that trapped a sun within.

The concerto sped up, chasing its own crescendo. The hem of her gown lapped at his shoes while she twirled around him, her steps graceful and feathery, and in her ear she could hear Skye gush about her own ability to teach a dance crash-course.

“May I say,” he began, “you look beautiful tonight.”

She blushed a little. Everything really was none of her doing; Skye did a wonderful job picking out a dress for her, and Bobbi Morse was the one doing her hair and makeup. Now the lilac gown accentuated her figure and delicate curls brushed loosely against her bare shoulder blades with every movement she made.

He looked at her, and there was no lust in his eyes, only reverie, like she was diamond and porcelain all at once, like if this had been ancient time wars could have been waged and ended at her own mercy.

“Thank you,” she patted his bowtie. “I could say the same to you.”

The music faded to a lulling coda. He tugged her even closer and tightened his clasp on her hand as they drifted to a slow waltz. “Is this your business tonight then? To dance with masked strangers?” he whispered in her ears. The warmth of his breath ran a ghostly finger down her back.

Her eyes flitted to the guards, who by now had returned to their posts. The danger had passed; and – buzzing with one cocktail too many – she supposed she  _should_  have some fun. “And is it your business to charm masked strangers? Because you’re excellent at it.”

At that, he almost missed a step. Her playful smile widened at his flustering.

———————————————

“ _Fitz, focus_ ,” Coulson finally spoke after the second dance.

His head snapped up and he tore his gaze away from the way her hips sashayed to the allegro. She was alluring and witty, and had things been different he would have loved to know her better, but she was also acting suspicious and he had a job to do.

“So how did you come to know our host, Daniel Whitehall?” he asked, and he felt wrong slipping back to the stoic façade that came with this mission.

She froze, becoming a bit unfocused. “He provides patronage for my research on neurobiology. Our relationship is, at most, professional,” she answered. It sounded to him like a record playing on loop.

“You are not so fond of him, I gather,” he remarked as he dipped her and she arched, her hair tumbling back like fog lifting at crisp dawn.

“That’s one way of putting it, yes,” she laughed a little.

“So why are you here?”

It was fleeting, the lamented look in her eyes, like she was debating a matter of life and death, her teeth gnawing on her bottom lip, before resolve settled in. “There’s this process called the Hering–Breuer reflex,” she said. He gave her a questioning look, but she ignored him. Instead, she willed him to look her in the eye, as the sentences dripped out one word at a time. “Once triggered, it inhibits inhalation and activates exhalation. That’s why I’m here. I’m exercising my Hering-Breuer reflex. I’m holding my breath and exhaling the toxins. I want you to remember that.”

“I will,” he promised solemnly, and it was with both bafflement and fascination that he held on to her, fingers tracing formulas and equations on her exposed back, her jasmine scent settling contently into his lungs.

But, like all beautiful pieces of composition, there would always be a time when the final note’s resonance dispersed into smoke.

“ _Whitehall is there_ ,” the earpiece crackled and Coulson’s voice filled in the silence, “ _but we’ve been made.”_

Security guards began to weave their way through the crowd. His eyes flickered to her, and there it was again, that faraway look. He had no time to ponder, however, because the next words Coulson said were “proceed as planned.”

“But that would be a suicide mission,” he couldn’t help but mumble back.

Coulson paused for a second. There was a slight tremor in his tone as he reiterated, “ _proceed as planned_.”

Fitz blinked. Orders were orders, but his hand still held hers and the skin on her back still burned his fingertips and –

_Oh for fuck’s sake._

He yanked the mask off her face in one swift movement, just when the alarm went off and guests abandoned all aristocratic pretense to scatter in panic.

“What are you doing?” she gasped.

“Making the most out of the last thing I see,” came his answer. He drank her in, all her features, all her little facial tics, her blazing against the gold and silver room, her seared onto the core of his fibers. Then he tipped his own mask off and brought his lips to hers.

—————————————————

“ _There are more uninvited guests at the masquerade than expected_ ,” Skye notified, but as Simmons listened to the man in front of her muttering to thin air, she had a pretty good idea of who the other one was. “ _The guards have widened their search parameter. You’ve been instructed to abort the mission and withdraw._ ”

She was about to respond, but a hand had flown up and torn her mask away. And before she knew it, she was kissing her dance partner.

It wasn’t gentle. Their teeth clashed and their lips moved too urgently, too desperately. She tugged at his bowtie until it came undone and used it to drag him closer, her other hand twisting into his hair, clenching so hard she felt sharp nails digging into her own flesh. He tightened the arm on her waist, pressing their hips together like he was holding on to his lifeline. They drank each other in, two alcoholics drowning themselves in a vat of liquor as the world around them was set afire.

When they broke apart for air, Skye was yelling at her to get to the extraction team outside, and never before had she felt this much resentment at the timing of the universe, at the ugly hand she had been dealt. He smiled, the first smile she saw without the obscurity of a mask, and it was so sad it left charred remnants in its wake.

Then he turned, squared his shoulders, marched up the staircase towards Whitehall, and she understood that it was her cue to leave.

————————————————

Fitz had successfully planted the Microbomb on Whitehall and detonated it.  _A bit sloppy, but then again, untimely assassinations always are_ , he mused as he knelt on the floor, surrounded by security guards, a gun to his head. Bakshi clicked his heels as he circled around Fitz to make one of those lengthy speeches before an execution, hoping to drag out the terror, but Fitz wasn’t paying him any attention. If death was breathing down his neck, there were plenty of better things to do than listening to a sociopath.

So Fitz closed his eyes and thought of a Scotland he left behind. His Mum would probably be watching telly right now, those awful English reality shows that he couldn’t get her to stop but he didn’t want to anyway because she was always so happy when they were on. He wondered if the telescope she had bought for his tenth birthday was still sitting by the window of his childhood bedroom, gathering dust and waiting for him to come home.

His vision blurred a little when it shifted from a foggy Glasgow to the pristine space of his lab, and he was struck with a forlorn sense of emptiness as he saw himself there, tinkering away with mechanical parts, always on his own. But here, in this last dream he would ever have, he allowed himself the luxury of make-believe, of a girl waltzing through his lab with the ease of familiarity, a ritornello his little concerto kept falling back to.

_If we ever meet again, in this life or the next, I’ll shake my fist at the universe until what we’re given is finally enough. But for now I’ll just take all that I have and run_.

He opened his eyes and stared down the barrel. Bakshi smirked a little, his finger ghosting over the trigger –

“HERING-BREUER!”

It took precisely three seconds for the phrase to sink in, and when it did, his lungs scrambled for one final gulp of air before he held his breath altogether. Blue gas started to roll in through the ventilation system. Within seconds everyone in the room except for him dropped to the floor, foaming at their mouths.

A figure emerged from the haze, stiletto heels clanking on the marble stairs, and he would recognize those sashaying hips, that lilac ball gown, the hair free-falling down bare back, even in his most nebulous reveries. He was still on his knees when she finally approached.

“Put this on,” she tossed a gas mask to him.

Hastily, they headed for the door, her running with the heels slung over her shoulders and him wheezing to keep up.

“I thought you were gone,” he grated in between breaths.

“I want to make sure that my Phantom has his own twisted happy ending,” she teased as she clambered after him into a quinjet parked outside the villa.

There was a twinkle in her eyes that sparked a fire to his insides, and soon he found himself ripping off his gas mask, then her own. “No more masks,” he breathed.

His lips molded onto hers, and this time there were no assassinations to be done, no plans to be followed through, no persistent sense of death to be petrified of. He decided, his tongue blazing an ardent trail along her bottom lip, that the world would never curl its ugly fingers around this moment. He would never allow it.

“Agent Leo Fitz, of SHIELD,” he finally introduced himself when they pulled apart, touching his slightly swollen lips with a euphoric grin. It never did occur to him that this entire time, they didn’t know each other’s name.

“Agent Jemma Simmons, of the World Security Council,” she responded with a smile.

“Jemma Simmons,” he repeated just to test out how the syllables tasted. Sitting back, dazed, her name on his tongue like nostalgia for something that hadn’t happened yet, he murmured quietly, “hello.”


End file.
